TINY BUT MIGHTY
This small Auckland garden proves how a big impact can be achieved in tight spaces
A surprisingly lush outlook for a miniature Auckland plot.
Jacqui and Phil Dixon don’t have a green finger between them, but when it comes to their own garden, they wear their hearts on their sleeves. Walk into their inner-city home in Auckland’s Freemans Bay and you’re immediately drawn along the corridor to something special beckoning from the back. Their elegant glass-walled living room throbs with a vivid panorama of shiny foliage. “People don’t expect such a lush green picture,” says Jacqui.
“We love it – it’s like a constant gift and we have no wish, or the talent, to do anything other than enjoy it. It’s a little like an artwork. We don’t want to interfere with it.”
This narrow belt of jungle is more like a trompe l’oeil – a trick of the eye – than a traditional landscape painting. The feeling of abundance is an illusion because the Dixons’ garden is about as deep as a bathtub and only as wide as the house, give or take a narrow path at each side. Towering over this leafy profusion is a pair of China doll trees (Radermachera sinica), under which seemingly every shapely leaf nature invented, mixes and mingles in a stylish, evergreen display. Subtropical is the label on the tin, with plants from around the world rubbing shoulders with homegrown heroes such as ponga.
And given that its owners are purveyors of upscale artisan ingredients to chefs and gourmet cooks through their boutique business Sabato, it’s tempting to reach for a foodie analogy. A tasty morsel springs to mind. But it could have been so different when they moved in seven years ago.
Back then the garden was looking tired and in need of attention, which they had neither the skills nor the time to sort out. Work keeps them busy seven days a week on the retail side, with plenty of after-hours outreach events for chefs and tastemakers. And before Covid, they travelled extensively, with annual trips to Europe to ensure a continuous supply of taste treats. Plus there’s a Bay of Islands bach beckoning them away.
So they could have been forgiven for ripping the whole lot out and starting again, say with faux lawn and a talking-point mural on the garden fence.
The difference here though is that these guys are driven by a passion for excellence, so the garden equivalent of a bouquet of silk flowers on the kitchen bench just wouldn’t cut it.
Besides, says Phil: “There’s a calmness that the lawn gives. Without it you lose the whole point of the garden.” Says Jacqui: “We were keen to live with something that’s living.” And they were never tempted to change it.
Enter Martin Keay, plant connoisseur and professional gardener to a stellar client list, whose wife Donna Hoyle is the creative force behind all of Sabato’s distinctive print design. “We’ve known Martin and Donna for 27 years or so,” says Jacqui.
A typical Martin Keay project consists of hard-to-find plants, but there’s nothing especially unusual here. And he is a dab hand at caring for tiny gardens, as well as bigger plots.
Presented with a tired backyard: “It all looked a bit yellow when I started,” Martin finessed the mix by “constant tweaking”. He did a cull of laggards, installed irrigation, finessed the plant selection and “the secret of my success – feeding, feeding, feeding”.
To play up the wow factor, he introduced a selection of massive plant pots from Artedomus. When it comes to scale in a small garden you can never have too big a pot, he says – though it was a squeeze getting them down the side of the house. Over-scale but not over the top, these pots hold the smaller variety of ponga, Dicksonia squarrosa, softened by bed-mates such as ornamental taro, as an example of Martin’s signature layered planting.
That layering effect is aided and abetted by mature groups of bamboo and palms behind the fence, thanks to their neighbours. Martin calls this the Japanese concept of the borrowed landscape, shakkei, in which you accept and play up existing features that are beyond your own borders.
“This garden is a miracle,” he says. “It’s a fantastic example of exactly what you can do in Auckland. It’s so small and so sheltered. Everyone should do this. It’s part of the house really.” Despite (or because of) the shock factor it provokes, “this garden is an understated little oasis”.
Jacqui and Martin credit previous owner and renovator Jo Legat as the garden’s inspired creator. “This is not Martin’s style of garden but he’s a plant savant, and he was so clever the way he has enhanced what was here originally,” says Jacqui.
Martin says the garden is reasonably low maintenance; he spends about eight hours a month on its upkeep. Edibles are next
on Martin’s project list. “The vegetable garden side will happen when it happens,” says Jacqui. “We are fans of lettuce, rocket, spring onions, spinach and silverbeet. Limes, lemons, cherry tomatoes and passionfruit would be great, but our efforts to grow passionfruit have not worked, as yet.” Jacqui says that even after nearly 30 years in the business, their lives are as busy as ever. “We thought we’d be working less by now.” Thank goodness for their peaceful green sanctuary.
“It’s a very restorative garden to look at, and certainly the height and many layers give a feeling of restful privacy. We love the look of all the different plants and the bursts of colour which pop up depending on the season. A plethora of lovely surprises.”
Come summer, the garden “is a lovely place to do my Naam yoga meditation practice.” At other times she takes it inside, with the garden as her view. “It’s lovely, calming, abundant and green – a great meditation tool.”